September 11, 2001, started as a normal day.
After twenty-five years, that is still one of the things I remember most clearly.
There was nothing different about that morning. Nothing that told us we were waking up on a day that would change our country, change countless families, my own life and become one of those dates that would never again need an explanation.
My siblings and I were eating cereal. Mom had bought the off-brand Frosted Flakes that we liked, and my sister and I were arguing over who got to open the milk first.
I remember that.
It seems like such an insignificant thing to remember about September 11th, but perhaps that’s exactly why it has stayed with me. We weren’t watching history unfold yet. We were children having breakfast. Life was completely normal.
My mom had the Today Show on, just as she did most mornings. Then she called out to us. They were reporting that an airplane had hit the World Trade Center.
We ran into the room.
At that age, I didn’t even really know what the World Trade Center was. I didn’t understand New York City. I certainly didn’t understand terrorism or al-Qaeda or why anyone would deliberately murder innocent people they had never met.
But I understood what an airplane was.
And I knew there were people on it.
My sister and I understood that much. There had been people sitting in those seats. They had families. They had somewhere they expected to be later that day.
And they weren’t going to make it.
We forgot about our cereal.
It sat on the table getting soggy while we watched the television. Quiet, all together.
I can still remember that.
I can remember the cereal. I can remember arguing over the milk. I can remember my mother’s voice. I can remember looking at the television and trying to understand what I was seeing.
And then, while we were watching, the second plane hit.
I remember asking my mother a question.
“Is it normal for planes to hit these buildings?”
I remember the look on her face.
She looked worried.
And suddenly even a child could understand that something was terribly wrong.
We Didn’t Know What Was Coming Next
One of the things that can be difficult to explain twenty-five years later is that we didn’t know how the story ended.
Today we can watch a documentary about September 11th and know what comes next. We know about the four airplanes. We know about the Pentagon. We know about Flight 93. We know that the towers fell. We know who attacked us and much of what followed.
On that morning, we didn’t know any of that yet.
We were watching it happen.
Nobody knew if another plane was coming.
Nobody knew if another city was going to be attacked.
My mother was worried that something might happen where we lived in East Tennessee. Looking back with everything we know now, that fear might seem misplaced. But on September 11, 2001, Americans didn’t know where the next attack might happen.
For a little while, it seemed possible that nowhere was completely safe.
My dad came home from work early. He was a Navy reservist at the time.
I don’t remember seeing him afraid.
That memory has become more meaningful to me as I’ve gotten older and become a father myself. It doesn’t mean he wasn’t concerned. I’m sure there were things going through his mind that I couldn’t possibly have understood as a twelve-year-old boy.
But I remember him taking everything in.
And I remember him answering our questions.
What was happening?
Why would somebody do this?
Was this really an attack?
Were there going to be more attacks?
He didn’t have all the answers. Nobody did.
But he was there.
And we watched.
Now I Serve With Sailors Who Weren’t Alive That Day
Twenty-five years is a long time.
Long enough that something I remember experiencing has become history to an entire generation.
I’m in the Navy today, and I now serve alongside sailors who were not alive on September 11, 2001.
Sometimes that realization catches me.
My own children weren’t alive either.
We’ve taught them about September 11th. They’ve seen documentaries. They know what happened. They may not yet understand all the history behind al-Qaeda or why those terrorists did what they did, but they understand something important:
A group of evil men deliberately murdered innocent people.
My children know September 11th because someone taught them about it.
I know September 11th because I remember it.
There’s a difference.
I wouldn’t say September 11th is why I joined the Navy. That wouldn’t be true. But America was still fighting the war that followed when I made the decision to serve. People were still deploying. Joining the military meant knowing that you could be sent to participate in that fight.
My brother-in-law fought in that war.
My dad supported that war.
I served during the era that came from it.
September 11th became part of the world in which my generation grew up.
And now we’re raising the generation that came afterward.
That makes me think about Pearl Harbor.
There was once a generation of Americans who didn’t learn about Pearl Harbor from a history book. They remembered hearing the news themselves. They remembered what their parents said. They remembered what their country felt like the next morning.
Eventually there were fewer of them.
Their children remembered because their parents told them.
Their grandchildren remembered because someone told them.
That’s how living memory becomes history.
And that’s why we have to tell the story.
There Was Evil That Day. There Was Also Extraordinary Good.
We should be clear with our children about the evil of September 11th.
Al-Qaeda terrorists attacked the United States and murdered innocent people.
That truth matters.
There are still people in this world willing to do terrible things to others. The names change. The organizations change. The methods change. Evil doesn’t always announce itself in the same way.
But when I remember September 11th, I don’t want to remember only the people who committed evil.
Because that day was filled with people doing good.
We watched firefighters enter buildings while thousands of people were trying desperately to escape them.
Police officers ran toward danger.
Paramedics and other first responders went to work without knowing what was going to happen next.
And thousands of ordinary people helped one another.
Some of their names are remembered.
Most aren’t.
There was someone who helped a stranger down a staircase.
Someone who carried something for another person.
Someone who held a door.
Someone who saw a frightened person and stayed with them.
Someone who could have kept moving but stopped because another human being needed help.
History will never record every one of those names.
But those people were part of September 11th too.
The heroes of that day weren’t only the President of the United States or the leaders whose names appeared on television.
Many of them were ordinary people.
They woke up expecting an ordinary Tuesday.
Then the world around them changed, and they had to decide what kind of person they were going to be.
Big Days Start as Normal Days
That’s something I want my children to understand.
Big days often start as normal days.
September 11th began with breakfast in our house.
My sister and I were arguing about opening the milk.
My mother was watching the Today Show.
My father had gone to work.
Thousands of people in New York, Washington, and elsewhere were doing exactly the same sorts of ordinary things.
Nobody knew what was coming.
My children will have days like that in their lives.
I pray they never experience anything resembling September 11th. But sooner or later, every person encounters a moment when the ordinary disappears.
An accident.
An emergency.
Someone who needs help.
Something wrong happening in front of them.
A moment when looking away would be easier than stepping forward.
And in that moment, they’ll have to decide what they’re going to do.
Sometimes our culture tells us that the safest thing is to keep our heads down, worry about ourselves, and just get through the day.
September 11th showed us something different.
It showed us ordinary people doing extraordinary things.
Courage doesn’t require fame.
It doesn’t require anyone to know your name afterward.
Sometimes courage means running into a burning building.
Sometimes it means helping someone get out of one.
Sometimes it means stopping for a stranger when everyone else is running.
Sometimes it simply means recognizing that another person needs you and deciding that you’re not going to leave them alone.
I don’t want my children to learn about September 11th and become afraid of the world.
I want them to learn that when the world becomes frightening, they can choose courage.
Why We Remember Today
Twenty-five years have passed since that morning.
We say “Never Forget.”
After enough repetition, words can become something we say without stopping to think about what they mean.
I don’t want “Never Forget” to become that.
Today we remember nearly 3,000 people who were killed.
We remember people who left home that morning expecting to return that evening.
We remember husbands and wives who never came home. Mothers and fathers. Sons and daughters. Friends and coworkers.
We remember the people aboard the airplanes.
We remember firefighters, police officers, paramedics and other first responders.
We remember those who served our country in the years that followed.
And we remember ordinary people whose names we’ll never know who chose courage when it was asked of them.
But remembering isn’t only about looking backward.
It’s also about deciding what we do with the memory we’ve been given.
Most of us will go about an ordinary day today. We’ll work. We’ll take care of our families. We’ll eat dinner. We’ll live the lives we’ve been given.
There is something profoundly good about that.
Twenty-five years later, families are still being raised. Children are still sitting around breakfast tables. People are still working, building, worshiping, loving, laughing and planning for tomorrow.
Life continued.
But for a little while today, we stop.
We remember.
And then we continue.
Hopefully a little kinder.
A little more willing to help.
A little more courageous when courage is required.
My children don’t remember September 11th.
I do.
Someday, there won’t be many people left who can say that.
So those of us who remember have a responsibility to tell those who don’t.
Not so they inherit our fear.
Not so they inherit our anger.
But so they inherit our memory.
And someday, when I’m no longer here to tell the story, perhaps my children will tell their children about September 11th.
Maybe they’ll even tell them about their dad remembering himself as a twelve-year-old boy in Bristol Virginia, sitting at the breakfast table with his sister.
They were eating off-brand Frosted Flakes.
They were arguing over who got to open the milk.
Their mother had the Today Show playing in the other room.
It was an ordinary morning.
And then it wasn’t.
Never forget.
